German supermarket giant Kaufland dumps its top-flight Australian executives

German super­market giant Kaufland is shedding its ­re­maining staff and senior executives in Australia.

Kaufland has shed its ­staff and senior executives after the supermarket chain decided to exit Australia,

Kaufland, the German super­market giant that had dreams of taking on the $100bn Australian supermarket sector but then cut and ran, is shedding its ­re­maining staff and senior executives, with the resignations of two directors, including the chief operating officer it poached from Metcash.

Kaufland Australia began letting go its estimated 200 staff last month, and over the weekend it lodged new documents with the corporate regulator that reveal two of its directors, Mark Hewlett and Maximilian Wiedmann, had resigned their directorships of the local arm of Kaufland.

Mr Hewlett was one of Kaufland’s biggest star recruits when the German discounter began ­enticing seasoned supermarket executives to join its ranks two years ago as it began to assemble its team for an initial rollout of as many as 20 Kaufland stores across Australia.

The British-born supermarket executive and one-time head of Woolworths’ petrol and convenience store business was poached by Kaufland from Metcash, where he was an executive general manager.

Mr Hewlett was slated to be Kaufland’s inaugural chief operating officer, and he spent six months training in Germany to take up the leadership role.

Mr Wiedmann was a German-based Kaufland executive who was sent to Australia to help start up and expand the burgeoning Australian operations, and he even appeared in publicity photos last year at a sod-turning ceremony in Melbourne where Kaufland announced it would build a mega-distribution centre for more than $255m.

The distribution centre would have created 600 jobs in the area and matched similar property deals in Adelaide, with Kaufland also spending tens of millions of dollars buying properties across Victoria, NSW and Queensland.

But those dreams, and the dreams of other recruits to the Kaufland cause, were dashed in January when the supermarket group made the shock announcement that despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars on property, staff and training, as well as forging deals with grocery suppliers, it had decided to dump its Australian expansion plans and instead focus on better growth opportunities in Europe.

Most of the 200 Kaufland Australia employees, including senior executives, were poached from Woolworths, Coles and independent supermarket operators, and many had taken up the offer of a six-month placement in Germany to undergo training.

Kaufland is a subsidiary of the Schwarz Group, the world’s fourth-largest retailer, which also owns grocery discounter Lidl.

The Kaufland Australia business was to be led by 29-year-old Kaufland junior executive Julia Kern, who instead of taking the battle to Woolworths and Coles and introducing Australians to the Kaufland experience was forced to break the news to her staff in January that the head ­office in Germany had decided to pull the plug and that everyone would be made redundant.